https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-cold-war-program-gets-hijacked-national-resource-center-security-1950s-critical-race-theory-environmental-justice-k-12-language-11665320013?mod=opinion_lead_pos5
A Cold War-era federal program has wandered far from its national-security mission and into the woke follies that permeate much of American education. For decades, U.S. colleges and universities have received taxpayer dollars through the Education Department’s National Resource Centers, a program intended to bolster U.S. national security at the height of tension with the Soviet Union. But more recently National Resource Centers are promoting unserious academic research or causes irrelevant to national security.
NRC-funded efforts included a training institute last year at the University of Texas, Austin, where teachers of pre-kindergartners through fifth graders were schooled in “(Un)learning patterns of whiteness in literacy teaching.” In May, Stanford University’s Center for Latin American Studies sponsored a webinar about using picture books to initiate “conversations centered on advocacy for LGBT Latina/o(x) youth.” The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia hosted a graduate student who uses critical race theory in her research on Russia and Ukraine.
Many scholars have questioned CRT’s academic rigor, distortions of history, and promotion of racial grievances. In fellowships at Syracuse University and Cornell University, education-school faculty incorporate subjects such as environmental justice into teacher-training programs. New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies held a 10-month program in which teachers use something called “contemporary critical educational theory” to create “culturally relevant” classroom lessons. The propaganda from such NRC-sponsored initiatives becomes more potent when the efforts include outreach for K-12 teachers, who will pass along what they learn to students.